The education of Hispanic Americans and their academic achievements
must be improved if the fast growing Latino community is going to participate
fully in the life of the nation.

So said Sarita E. Brown (left), executive director of the White House
Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, in the
Library's National Hispanic Heritage Month keynote address on Sept.
27.

Describing White House efforts to address the educational needs of
the Hispanic community, Ms. Brown said, "The fact that the fastest
growing community in this country, the Latino community, has lower
educational attainment rates creates a fault line. It places the future
of our country on a fault line because today, as in no other time in
our world history ... the capacity to think, to reason, to analyze,
is the life's blood, not only of our economy, but of our democracy."

Ms. Brown began by saying that the Library's Jefferson Building has
become her favorite place of interest in Washington. "Whenever
I have friends or family visiting, I tell them 'Let's visit the cathedral
[of] the mind.' It is not only a gorgeous facility, but the very nature
of its work, of your work ... is ideas, issues and how, through the
mind and through our words, we foster a continuity. It is [because
of] that, I was particularly pleased to receive your invitation to
come and talk to you about Hispanic Heritage Month."

Ms. Brown said she was particularly proud to be speaking at the Library
about the work of the 24-member President's Advisory Commission on
Educational Excellence, whose work she facilitates. In 1994 President
Clinton appointed the commission, consisting of superintendents from
big-city school systems, college presidents and elected officials.
Since then, the commission has worked at the request of President Clinton
and Secretary of Education Richard Riley to address the needs, issues
and strengths of the Latino community and to focus on better education
for Hispanics.

In 1994 the president signed Executive Order 12900. Ms. Brown's job
is to help implement this order. She advises the president and his
administration on the educational status of Hispanic Americans from
early childhood through graduate and professional levels; works with
26 federal agencies to improve educational opportunities for Hispanic
Americans; and assists in increasing the number of Hispanic Americans
in federal employment. "Our government ... absolutely needs the
talents, the perspectives, the contributions of Latinos," Ms.
Brown said.

The 1994 commission was charged by the president with the responsibility
of looking at education from early childhood programs through grade
12, as well as undergraduate, graduate and professional education.

The commission issued a 1996 report, "Our Nation on the Fault
Line: Hispanic American Education." "That report was basically
the diagnosis," she said.

In effect, the report was the commission's call to action, urging
local, state and federal policymakers to take deliberate and immediate
steps to improve the educational achievement of Hispanics.

"To participate fully in this country requires a quality education.
[But] when you look at the shortfall, the facts [are] that Latinos
are still not graduating from high school in the numbers necessary,
not participating in colleges and universities at the rate necessary,
not becoming doctors and lawyers and college professors in the way
that we need as a country," Ms. Brown said. "If we do not
have the human resources in the 21st century that we have had in the
past, we are talking about a country on the fault line."

Ms. Brown said the commission is an activist group. Even though the
Clinton administration took important steps after the release of the
commission's 1996 report, the commission recognized that concerted
national action is still necessary to raise the level of educational
achievement in the Hispanic community. To this end, on Sept. 25 the
commission released another report, "Creating the Will: Hispanics
Achieving Educational Excellence."

Ms. Brown discussed some of the commission's findings in its assessment
of "the educational pipeline" from early childhood education
and beyond. "Too few Latino children are participating in Head
Start programs."

The report also found fault with preparation of Latino students for
college. "The fact [is], when you look throughout this country
at the course offerings in junior high and high schools, you will find
a disparity in the advice that we give college-going students," she
said. "Look at course offerings in schools in many communities
with large Latino numbers: Algebra is not offered. Geometry is not
offered; it's not that it's not offered at the grade level that is
recommended, [but] it's not offered. That is fixable. That is changeable."

In closing, Ms. Brown alluded to Hillary Clinton's invocation of the
African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child." In
the same vein, Ms. Brown said, the Sept. 25 report says: "There
is a role for all of us. There is a role for parents, in support of
your own children and those in your community."

Mr. Brown is head of the Mail and Correspondence Control
Section in the U.S. Copyright Office.